


Wishes & Dreams

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Series: Breathing [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alfred Pennyworth is the Best, Alternate POV, Alternate Point of View, Brief appearances by the other boys, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Distressing screams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 12:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18571870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: The nightmares were bad that night. He knew they would be. When the screaming began, it was not a question of if or even when, but rather a question of who and in what order.(As with Breathing, this fic borrows from TQT in structure only. You can read it without knowing those works. This will just hurt more if you do.)





	Wishes & Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> In celebration of my one-year fic-writing anniversary, I allowed followers on Tumblr to request an off-page fic snippet—a different POV of one of the scenes, a peek at what happened after, etc., of any of my finished fics.
> 
> This is one of those.
> 
> https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/184105188732/new-ask-meme-starting-here-because-it-popped-into

The nightmares were bad that night. He knew they would be. When the screaming began, it was not a question of if or even when, but rather a question of who and in what order.

Alfred leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips once against the porcelain cup in his hands. The house was quiet, but he could feel its breath, not yet settled into the rhythms of rest. The bedroom doors remained closed down the length of the hallway, but with one, possibly two exceptions, he doubted any of their occupants had settled in for the night. No one would want to be first.

No one had slept on the flight back either, not truly. Master Jason had dozed off and on, twitching and muttering in his sleep only to quiet again when Master Bruce murmured in his ear. Masters Tim and Damian also had subsided into hooded, disassociated states close to rest but not quite there. Alfred himself had split his time between the entirety of the family, assessing young Damian’s bruises, monitoring Jason, and taking turns at the helm with Master Dick. As for his part, Bruce never left Jason’s side.

Even now, they were apart only at Alfred’s insistence. _Rest_ , he had told them both. _Let the boy heal._

Ordinarily, Jason would protest being called a boy. Much like Damian he was in that way. And, truth be told, there was little boyishness left in his appearance. Death had filled him out in ways Alfred could scarcely believe, broadening his shoulders and deepening his voice. Death and that wretched al Ghul clan.

It was a man, not a boy, who had protected his brothers at great cost to himself, a man who had hid the truth to spare them further damage. But it was still a boy who had fussed under Alfred’s care, the same boy who used to squirm away from plaster over skinned knees and ice packs to swollen eyes blooming black. And it was, in many ways, still just a boy who had fought to reach his father’s side, when he had thought there was danger afoot.

It was a strange mix of the two that was screaming now.

Alfred couldn’t wholly stifle the grunt as he heaved himself to his feet. His hip had gone stiff in the waiting, the movement sending a twinge down his leg to match the ache in his lower back and the gritty burning behind his eyelids.

_Nothing boyish about you, is there, Pennyworth, old chap?_

Nightmares in Wayne Manor had to be eased with care. Alfred opened the bedroom door just enough to slip his hand inside. His fingers fumbled, then found the dimmer switch and slowly raised the lights, lifting the darkness in the room without risking a startling change. Undoubtedly the rest of the house was stirring in the rooms behind him, but for the moment, Alfred was alone in the hallway, so he allowed himself a grimace at the noises coming from within the room.

“Master Jason.”

There was not so much as a stutter in the screams, so Alfred tried again, careful to keep his voice level and firm even as he raised it.

“Master _Jason_.”

The screaming cut off, not cleanly, but with a ragged, whimpering edge. It was progress—not progress Alfred could be thankful for, but progress nonetheless.

He opened the door.

The boy was sitting up in his bed, linens twisted beneath him and tangled around his limbs. His forehead and neck glistened with sweat in the low light, the sheen twinkling as his chest heaved for breath.

“Master Jason.” Alfred’s voice was soft now, low and conciliatory in the proper way for frightened children and dangerous men.

The sweat-plastered head snapped in the direction of his voice. Blue eyes stared but did not see. A splotch of red was beginning to spread across his abdomen, staining the cotton t-shirt. That would be stitches popped, then.

“My boy, you are safe,” Alfred soothed as he took a step toward the bed, only to stop as its occupant jerked.

“Alfred?” The soft call came not from the bed, but the door.

“Stay back, Master Timothy,” Alfred warned, his gaze still on the bed.

“Can I get anything?” Tim offered, a good and helpful lad to a fault.

“What’s going on?” Damian demanded from just behind Tim, voice thick with the painkillers he had taken an hour before.

Jason seemed to be coming to in the bed. His breathing hadn’t slowed, nor had the almost inaudible whine coming from the back of his throat ceased, but his eyelids were beginning to flicker as he blinked back to consciousness.

Alfred searched his face, then dared take a very small, shuffling step forward.

“Al? Is everything alright?”

Alfred's lips pinched in frustration as Dick’s added voice made Jason flinch again. His arms, supporting him upright against the bed, had begun to tremble.

It was concern, Alfred knew, and residual anxiety from the day’s events that pushed them all into the room, crowding behind Alfred to murmur their offers.

“Is there danger?”

“Does he need water?”

“Aw, Jay—Al, I’ll get him a new nightshirt, don’t worry.”

“I can fetch some clean bandages.”

“Was it a nightmare?”

“Get out.”

The last was Jason, his voice burred with sleep, but he was lost beneath the rising tide of concern.

“Geez, he’s sweating like—”

“Hold on, I’ll get a washcl—”

“Shall I fetch Titus to stand—”

“Get _out_!” Jason’s hand lifted, then punched down against the mattress. The movement nearly destabilized him, and Alfred started forward to catch him before he could collapse. Unfortunately, the others had the same intent.

A small mass of bodies surged forward, worry bubbling and spilling over to slosh about the room. None were bothering to whisper now, not even Alfred as he turned to shepherd them back toward the door.

“ _GET OUT!_ ”

They all ducked. The thrown boot knife went wide and stuck quivering in the wall to the left of a tastefully framed portrait of a meadow.

Into the silence, Bruce spoke. “Your brother has made his wishes clear. To bed with you, or to the kitchen for warm milk if you can’t sleep, but it is time for you all to leave.”

Alfred didn’t see them go. He was watching Jason on the off-chance that the boy decided to throw the second knife now clutched in his hand. They would likely be safe—though thrown in panic, the first projectile had not been aimed to injure—but Alfred thought it wise to monitor against, regardless. He also wanted to keep an eye on that growing bloodstain.

Bruce stepped past Alfred, hand ghosting his shoulder in warning and greeting before he continued on to the bed.

“Jay?” The name was little more than a whisper, but Jason’s head turned to him.

“Bruce?” His voice was rough, scratched raw by the screaming, and wobbled at the end.

Bruce reached out his hand and gently cupped his son’s face. Jason’s expression crumbled. A moment later, Bruce was sitting on the bed, the boy pulled into his arms.

Alfred had begun his retreat for the door. The ripped stitches, though alarming, could withstand a few moments of privacy, but he was not quite to the exit when he heard Jason croak, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Alfred changed course quickly, plucking the discreetly placed wastebasket from its hiding spot and hurrying to the bed. He held it in place as Jason vomited, and Bruce held Jason, keeping him upright and stroking his forehead until Jason could spit the last string of bile into the bin.

“That was the worst,” Jason groaned as he sagged into his father.

Bruce hummed. “You always were an overenthusiastic puker.”

Jason huffed a shaky laugh, then turned to press his forehead against the side of Bruce's neck. That was something he used to do as a child, Alfred remembered with a start, wondering how he could have forgotten. When compared to Dick, Jason had always been the more standoffish of the two, but he had been known to cling when truly distressed. Grown as much as he had, the action was only feasible now with the way Jason had slumped down boneless and shaking into Bruce’s arms.

Alfred retreated to the attached bathroom to clean out the wastebasket, but his ears were not so dulled by old age that he missed the conversation in the next room.

“Bruce,” Jason whispered, “promise me you’ll make sure I’m dead next time. Promise me you won’t bury me alive. Or cremate me. And promise me you won’t bring me back.”

There was silence from the bedroom. There was silence in the bathroom where Alfred stood frozen, stomach turning and heart aching. There was silence in the whole of the Manor, in all of Gotham, it seemed.

Into the silence, Alfred leaned forward enough to see through the crack in the door. Bruce had his face turned so his lips were pressed into his son’s sweaty, matted curls. A single tear had streaked his face, shimmering in the light before disappearing into the tired lines that creased his skin.

Old. They had all become old when Alfred had looked away.

“I’ll make sure you have some sort of alarm, how about that?” Bruce offered. Despite the hitch in his voice, he sounded warm and soothing, much like his own father, God rest his soul.

In the privacy of the bathroom, Alfred pressed his hand to his heart and maintained pressure in an attempt to ease the ache. He didn’t know how to reconcile his grief that they had become a family to make these sorts of half-joking promises with his gratitude of how far they had come that they could.

From the bedroom, Jason sniffled and muttered something Alfred couldn’t catch. Bruce chuckled, low and rumbling, then said, “Let Alfred come back in and stitch you up again so he can get his old bones to bed.”

Alfred sniffed disdainfully as he reemerged, his heart tucked neatly back into his pocket. “It is impolite to discuss the age of a gentleman’s skeletal system, Master Bruce. Though I’m sure mine works as well as it ever has.”

“Alfred’s not old,” Jason protested with a yawn. “He’s immortal. That’s a different thing.”

Alfred shushed them both with a soft tut and went to fetch his kit. The damage to Jason’s stitches was limited to a few popped seams, which were quickly mended and bound in fresh gauze. Despite the night’s fright, both of the bed’s occupants were blinking dozily by the time Alfred closed the kit again. He didn’t have to ask to know that Bruce would be spending the rest of the night in this room, in this bed. Perhaps the decision would keep the nightmares at bay for them both.

“I will be downstairs if you need me, sir,” Alfred murmured to Bruce.”I suspect there are several little boys who need their television turned off.”

The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked upward. “Don’t let them hear you call them that. They all think they’re grown.” He smoothed the curls off of Jason’s temple and shifted the boy in his arms. Jason sighed but didn’t open his eyes.

“The privileges of an old man. You are all still little boys to me.” Alfred bent and pressed his lips to Jason’s forehead, then to Bruce’s. “Goodnight, sirs. Only the sweetest of dreams to you both.”

There were no return wishes to follow him across the room. By the time Alfred turned to shut the door, they were both asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I still owe certain details and motifs in this fic to Megan Whalen Turner, because she's the best and her series, The Queen's Thief series, is the pinnacle of literary achievement.


End file.
